A week later, Gerrad died.
Both Keith and Nessa were prepared for it, but when it actually happened, they couldn't hold their tears.
A day after the funeral,
Keith was walking casually along with his friend, Rey, for the last time as he and his sister had planned to leave this place tonight.
"So, are you okay?" Rey asked with some concern.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Then...why don't you come to my house for a while?"
"..." Keith pondered for a while and after a few breaths of time, said, "Okay."
They both reached their destination within a couple of steps. Entering the small house of his friend, Keith only had one thought in mind, 'Feels warm as always.'
"Keith, you just wait here, okay? I'm going to bring my father." Rey said after giving him a glass of water.
Within 5 minutes, a man who looled to be in his middle 30s with some grey hair came in the room and sat on a chair infront of Keith.
"How have you been, Keith?" The middle aged man asked. This man was Rey's father, Lucas.
"I've been well." Keith answered.
"...So...I'm sorry for your loss." Lucas said, a little awkward
"Mm."
Lucas's expression turned into a serious one as he said his next words, "Keith, although you're 15 years old, there's still a year left before you could be considered a proper adult, and...how do I say it..." After churning his head to choose the irght words for a while, he gave up and directly said, "Why don't you marry your sister to my son? He is your friend and I can help you in the future."
"Eh?" This sudden development left Keith speechless, 'What the fu...hell?' Along with this thought came a strong sense of repulsion, 'Why would I have my sister marry someone in your family? Am I blind?'
Keith didn't even think twice before rejecting.
"But why? There isn't anything wrong with Rey, and I'm pretty sure that Gerrad would've wanted his daughter to marry a good man, like him." Lucas refuted but seeing no change in Keith's expression, his face turned a little ugly, 'Hmph, brat, you think you can act like a grown up just because you're the only man in your house?'
"Hey...Keith, this wasn't my intention, my father just told me to have you come here." Rey said in a meek voice, 'Ruined, our friendship has been ruined.'
"I don't care." Keith said as he simply walked out.
'How dare he think that MY sister would marry into his family?'
Soon, his anger subsided and he understood the deeper intention of Lucas.
'I can help you in future?' My ass, he would definetly have tried to get my property.
"And we're leaving anyways, so why bother even thinking about it?" He murnured in a low voice, let out a sigh, and entered his house.
"Hey Keith, I've prepared the weapons." Nessa said in an energetic tone.
...
At night, two people could be seen travelling through the forest with each holding one axe in their hands. One was a young man of around 15 years and a girl of almost the same age.
They were both wearing brown leather clothing as well as a chainmail under all that leather.
"So, little brother, can you tell me in which direction are we going?" Nessa asked, her sense of direction was already pathetic to say the least. Coupled with the fact that they had stopped travelling by the crude road a while ago made her rely on her younger brother a lot more in this darkness.
"To the North, we have to travel for 2 months, then we'll reach a human kingdom named Olton, according to what father had said. There, we have to join any mercenary guild and then we can start earning and make a living." Keith said as he cut the head of a snake right infront of him.
"Oh, I see, but two months is a lot, isn't it? Plus I yhink it'll be quite difficult to travel through this forest all that time." Nessa said with a wry smile on her face.
"Hm, that's why we have to travel as much as possible everyday." Keith answered after a while.
"What is your plan?" Nessa asked while cutting the wild grass.
"We will travel for this entire night, then rest in the morning after finding a safe place, then set off again, after that, we will regularly rest at night and simply travel during the day."